The gloves are off in the Democratic primary race for the 8th Congressional District. First-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez started it last week, slamming his opponent Ravi Bhalla online for unethically doing a political interview at City Hall in Hoboken, where Bhalla is the mayor.
Bhalla shot back, “Wow the entitled son of corrupt Bob ‘Gold’ Bar Menendez trying to lecture me about ethics!”
“His father used his weight and influence to give his son a congressional seat. That is nepotism — rank nepotism — at its worst,” Bhalla said Monday.
“That’s where he’s going to want to pivot every single time. He’s not going to want to address his own failures as mayor, his own ethical issues,” Menendez retorted. Menendez said city council members blew the whistle on Bhalla, who admits he shouldn’t have done a political interview inside City Hall.
“… I don’t think either side is going to give an inch between now and June,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.
While Menendez scored the coveted endorsement of Hudson County’s powerful Democratic political machine, it abandoned his father, Sen. Bob Menendez, after the senator’s latest indictment on corruption charges.
“Even though Rob Menendez is not on trial, they have the same name. And that alone I think is quite problematic. How many voters in the district even know that there’s two? Probably not a lot,” said Hudson View correspondent John Heinis.
Bhalla has served as Hoboken mayor for six years. His campaign raised $974,000 in the fourth quarter last year, compared to Rep. Menendez’s $348,000.
“Nobody who has ever run for the house in New Jersey before has raised as much money as [Bhalla] did in his first quarter,” Rasmussen said.
Much of Menendez’s donations come from major players and political action committees. And the county machine’s organizational edge still goes to Menendez.
